MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Saturday exhorted farmers to take interest in growing fruits and vegetables along with traditional cereals to earn additional profits.

MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Saturday exhorted farmers to take interest in growing fruits and vegetables along with traditional cereals to earn additional profits.

“I am committed to making agriculture a profit-making business and want income via agriculture to double in the next five years. I want farmers’ children to be industrialists and every support will be extended to them to set up food processing units,” Chouhan, addressing a convention of farmers from different districts of the Ujjain division, said.

The chief minister also said that the area of land irrigated has substantially increased in the 11 years that he has been at the helm of affairs — 40 lakh hectares — from what it was under the Congress rule — seven lakh hectares.

He also urged the farmers to adopt cashless payment mode and said that training programmes would be conducted in all mandis in the state.

Chouhan also symbolically handed over certificates of compensation to some farmers over insurance relating to the 2015 Kharif crops. Principal secretary (agriculture) Rajesh Rajora said Rs 4400 crore was being disbursed to 20 lakh farmers under the insurance scheme. The chief minister’s office tweeted that this was the country’s first crop insurance claim distribution.

Passengers suffer after buses acquired for meet

Bus passengers in Indore were left in the lurch on Saturday as the transport department acquired nearly 440 buses to ferry farmers for the Ujjain convention.

The passengers who suffered most were those who commute daily trip between Indore and Mhow.

Meanwhile, regional transport officer MP Singh said buses leave for Mhow every 4-5 minutes, for which adequate arrangements were made. He said available buses made multiple rounds to address the needs of passengers.